Merrie Yuletide!

 
A Yuletide Blessing

Long is the night and the stars are bright;
Cold is the wind, and sighing.
Bare are the trees -- there's snow in the breeze;
Silent, the land... but not dying:
Sleep is the cure when one must endure --
Lord, knight, lady and fool:
Here is the night when back comes the light:
Blessed be all, upon Yule.

ooOOooOOooOOooOOooOOoo

Merrie Yuletide to all!

This is such a bittersweet festival to me, because the Winter Solstice also marks the anniversary of Mom's passing. And this year, it's more significant than ever. I can't believe that it's been seven years since she passed over. Seven years. She was born just short of the Winter Solstice in the northern hemisphere, and she passed on the very eve of Yule, in the south. I told her story here, so in this post I'll just say that I miss her, and always will. Wherever you are, Mom, I hope you're happy.

This year, we decided to celebrate the festival properly, with a small tree and some little gifts, and a midwinter feast. Nothing vastly elaborate, but something to break up the winter, which is turning out to be very cold indeed. Most of the continent is in the grip of an acutely chilly snap -- temperatures well below zero in the early morning, as far north as Queensland --

Not my photo!!! Borrowed from ABC News, to make my point, because (duh) I don't live in Qld. 

 --a nd there's really no answer to that, is there? Well, actually, there are several answers, but most of them involve jokes and the practise of banana bending, and there's not especially appropriate. So.

It's been a very long time indeed since I posted regularly to any blog. Life has been a bit rough, but I'll set down enough here to at least patch the gap a little. March and April saw me insanely busy. I did a stupendous amount of work on a new website, and as a consequence neglected others. It still isn't 100% complete, so I'm not (yet) going to link to it. Then in May, Dave and I got Covid a second time ... and everything sort of...ran off the rails. Long Covid is no joke, and there is no other explanation for what's going on with my health. I'm just exhausted, achy and confoozelated, a lot of the time. What can you say? I have eight tonnes of projects waiting to be tackled, and I don't have the energy, inspiration or creative zeal to sink my teeth into anything. No gumption. I hope this will change soon, but right now I'd have to say that the last four months or so have zipped past in a blur. It's not just this blog I've neglected ... I haven't posted a line to Facebook in almost as long!

In fact, Facebook is rather a sore spot for me at the moment. The AI driving it rubbed me the wrong way just once too often. I was getting time bans (which I believe they call Facebook Jail) for NOTHING I had done, including a lifetime ban from something they call the "FB Marketplace," for "contravening their community standards" -- which was a bloody good trick, because I have never in my life even seen this FB Marketplace thing, much less clicked a mouse on/in it. Huh. The last time, FB banned me for a day for something I did "yesterday," when I hadn't even looked at a ruddy computer for a week!!! I saw that cheerful little message when I turned on my phone to get the time at 7:05am, one morning in March ... and I walked away from Facebook. Should I go back? Maybe. Will I? Possibly. If I have a good enough reason.

Actually, the good enough reason is probably sitting under the Yuletree right now, in wrapping paper. A new camera. Canon. Mirrorless, pro-level, with two lenses -- a digital revamp of the old SLR tech of yesteryear. This time, as a new chapter in my patchwork career as a photographer opens up, I intend to go out there as a landscape photographer, because I'll be able to capture wide shots in the equivalent of 4K resolution. The Lumix superzoom bridge cameras I've been using for the last five or six years are dandy for what they are -- I wanted to go birding at the time, and did -- but they have their limitations. I actually quit photographing landscapes, because the 1200mm zoom generally yields wide shots of such low resolution, in poor-light conditions, the work looks more like finger-painting than photography!

So ... if this pans out (and I'll soon know), I shall be able to go back to signing off and watermarking as "Jen Downes Photography," which is a luxury/arrogance I haven't permitted myself in years now. We'll see. But one thing is for sure: this is going to be fun.

So ... Merrie Yuletide to all!

And for myself, I should be making resolutions for the new year that begins as we pass the midwinter solstice. Get past the Covid blues ... be more creative ... write my own stories, as well as "just" editing for Mike (which is also tremendously gratifying, and a lot of fun) ... try and find some genuine optimism for the future ... get out there with the new Canon mirrorless camera, and capture this state in Ultra HD. 

There. Goals to strive for as we go forward.  

Second Life (again) ... more Photoshop magic

 

Photoshop brushes...

...and lighting effects

Dinokonda and reflections

Bryce sky, Photoshop birds and moon

Photoshop lens flare and lighting

Working through the old archives -- weeding out dead links from 2010 and 2011, deleting stubs that go nowhere, replacing artwork that has vanished -- I find myself wondering, where in the world did I get all that inspiration and energy, fourteen years ago? Twelve years ago?! It's true that sooo much has happened in the ensuing years, and I've pretty much had the enthusiasm knocked out of me, like everybody else in this world. But dang, looking back on the volume of the work I did, and the vision that drove it -- how did I manage all that?!

Jarrat and Stone, commanding NARC-Athena

Mike 4 struts his stuff

Even by by 2011, the images had enough substance that in 2024 Photoshop can process them through in about a minute each and give them a quality that's quite acceptable, and attractive, even today. I still have a lot of work to do in the early years ... I thought I was done, and then stumbled over a recurring issue that's taking some considerable tracking down and mending. But I'm getting there. Meanwhile...

Vickie 4 still looks good

What's next? Well, I'm editing at the moment. Turns out, this is a job I rather enjoy, especially working in cahoots with a writer of the calibre of Doctor Mike Adamson -- the well-known Sherlock Holmes novelist. A new chapter of life and/or career might be juiuuuust about to begin, and I have to say, I'm looking forward to what might happen here! So...

Bryce creation, for NARC Aphelion

...it's way past time to start up Studio and se if I can find my muse again. But not today. Tomorrow, perhaps. Or at the latest, next week -- thus spake the imperatrix of all procrastinators. Nudge, wink.

Okay -- I'll weigh in on this discssion with my ten cents' worth!

It rages on and on and on: AI, and what to do about it? Can it be stopped? Can artists even survive, in the teeth of AI? And it's not just art: Neil DeGrasse Tyson spoke somewhere, recently, with his opinion that AI is going to kill the whole Internet because fake content (news, celebrity videos, politics, obituaries, whatever) are flooding the whole webosphere to the point where, even now, no one knows what to believe. Fast forward a few years, and nobody will believe anything at all ... and that's kaput to the www. So ... what about AI as it appertains to ART, which is where I live and breathe? Here goes. This is my position, for what it's worth.

A LOOK AT PURE AI PICTURES
uploaded at A4/Letter size: please see

Have I used it? Yes. Why? To find out what it was about -- if it had any merit, and if I hated AI, at least I know what I hate, and why I hate it, right? Right. So, what did I learn?

The argument is that AI steals images and just collages them together ... to a large extent, rather true. Or at least, absolutely true of many (most?) of the current engines. So, AI "stealing" images off the internet is real, and rife ... and I hate this, but I also believe it's way too late to stop it now: I'm pretty sure the damage is done, no matter how angry professional artists get --

I read a looooong analysis article about this, late in 2023 (don't have a link, sorry -- just my memory), and there was this one artist going utterly ape about how the work of artists like Boris, Frazetta, Foss and so forth is being (their word) bastardized ... and they showed examples, AND you could see exactly how works from 1950 or 1980 had been subsumed and adapted. No, this shouldn't be allowed to happen, and I'm sure that -- eventually -- some government body somewhere is going to issue a law that stops it, within their sphere of influence. But remember, a US law ain't worth the proverbial hill o' beans in Russia, Thailand, Philippians, Malaysia, Pakistan, whatever. AI engines only have to move offshore, and the only thing the lawmakers could do would be to block US users from getting onto those servers. That legislation would take another five years, by which time, there'll be a workaround to fool the system. In the end ... no, I don't see legislation based on or around copyright having much effect. So, what's next?
 
Well, how about we try getting real about this. People have been using tracing paper and cameras to copy and manipulate photos and other paintings since it first dawned on someone to do this. AI collage work is not very much different from what we've all done for more years than one cares to remember. So,  for myself ... I don't see much real harm in AI art, so long as it's used as a hobby. But I have to believe it's only a matter of time before legions of artists who wouldn't know one end of a paintbrush from the other start to sell their pictures to unscrupulous (or simply ignorant!) publishers. In fact, what's already happening is that indie publishers are no longer commissioning cover art: they're going DIY, doing it themselves, with the result that people like self  -- who used to earn a few bucks at the boot end of the industry -- don't earn the proverbial brass farthing anymore.

(Yes, I used to be a cover artist, circa 2012 -- paid US$80 per cover, ooooh, aaaah, LOL. The indie publisher I worked for is closed now ... she died. There's no answer to that.)

So, in fact I have two "beefs" with AI art:

1) small-time artists like self are losing the tiny bit of cash flow we used to have -- which means a lot when you're disabled, and the creation of intellectual property if pretty much all you have to work with. And --

2) ...I'm a wee bit miffed, because I worked hundreds of hours to learn digital painting. Each "doodle" in the learning process took ten or twelve hours of work, and left me with pain in the hand, neck and spine ... the learning process was months long, also tortuously slow. Along comes AI, and blows away anything I could hope to do even after 500 hours of learning and practise. So, yeah, I could be pretty miffed if I took myself too seriously. Since it's so damned hard to learn digital painting, and the results tend to be so iffy for so long ... why would anybody ever bother to learn? Why wouldn't they just say, "Stuff it, I'm using AI." So, AI is just becoming another way via which creativity, and raw talent, are being buried. 

Now, having said all that ... I looked at numerous engines just for curiosity. Lexica, Night Cafe, Playground, Wombo, Dreamlike, Leonardo, a whole bunch more. By and large, the results I got on the FREE versions were far too poor to lure me in, and to get anything better -- they want big bucks in subscription fees. Noooo can do. You know what this means: small time artists are screwed on one side, and on the other, the owners of the AI engines are making megabucks. It could be said that they're getting rich off the backs of artists who're out of work now.

Bottom line: AI art is a great hobby, but it has a whole bunch of downsides. And that's my take on all this. If you have a different opinion -- that's fine and dandy. But I know how AI has already affected me, and my artistic future looks a little bit iffy, unless I turn this whole thing into a hobby. Which, I'll be totally honest, is all it is, anyway. Wasn't intended to be, just turned out that way, nudge, wink. So, what's all this digital painting about? Well, this:

...that's all me and my trusty Huion pen tablet. It's fun ... it's original,  creative ... and I'll be damned if I can figure out how to earn a buck with art, LOL. 

Story time: An Eagle's Flight

Yeeeees, there's a story burbling around in my feverish brain. I'm giving it the working title you see right here, An Eagle's Flight, but it could wind up called An Eagle Flies, or Where Eagles Fly, something along those lines. Don't hold me to the title you see here. But --

-- view this one full sized, and you'll see that this is the same character as the warrior on the cover. Call him Orel (at this point; the name might change later, along with the story title, though I doubt it for reasons that will shortly become clear). This is where the story begins: the reluctant hero, a man trying to outrun his own reputation ... thrice decorated by the Queen of Zarabia after extraordinary feats in battle. But those feats came at a dreadful price. Orel doesn't sleep, he dreams ... he feels possessed by the spirits of the warriors he's killed in the service of the Queen. She's old, and she dotes on him; she's like his grandmother, which is saying a lot. Orel is not native to this country. He's from the east, and arrived as an orphan boy just old enough to walk. He knew only his name. In the common tongue of  Vennia, Orel means eagle. Queen Isabeau gives him his ticket of leave from the regiment and a heavy purse, so  Orel can take his cats and his horses, take to the backroads in a Vardo like those belonging to his own people ... and find himself, get his heart and mind back into synch. But --

-- yep, it was always on the cards. He hasn't been on the road more than five or six months -- just long enough to watch springtime turn to autumn, and start to feel like a human being again (not because he's sleeping better or not dreaming, but because he and his ghosts have made their peace) -- when he runs into a couple of old comrades from the regiment. Gianna and Lynos have just left the service, and have taken soldiering work in the pay of a local thane, who advertised that he wanted border scouts. This was what they signed up for, but Count Radriq double-talked them with a binding contract ... they didn't read the fine print. Now, rather than just scouting up the source of trouble on the borderlands between Zarabia and neighbouring Kedd, Orel's old army mates are expected to root out the trouble. Since it's big trouble and they're massively outnumbered, they're up against a rather nasty wall. If they renege on the contract, they'll never get this work again, and it's all they're trained for. They're stuck, like flies in amber. So, when they meet Orel by chance, obviously they're recruiting. Or at the very least begging for help. The problem is this dude:

His name is Jevenni and he's baaaad. This Keddish warlord is building himself a rogue empire, and the bricks of its foundations are piracy, highway robbery, pillage, people-trafficking, whatever it takes. He has no scruples, and in this last twelve months has become the bane of the local thane's life. Count Radriq wants the Keddish land pirates gone, and he's holding Gianna and Lynos to the letter of a contract they signed too fast, in ignorance. Enter Orel. Help! So...

...they talk him into it, naturally enough. He's not the type to abandon friends in need. There's a couple of things he suggests: they must hire a good lawyer from Queen Isabeau's own staff, get him here, and have him reduce Count Radriq and his documentation to legal confetti. A lawyer from the capital will cost a great deal of money, but Gianna and Lynos know just where to get it. Jevenni has stolen wagonloads of valuables from the nobles of Count Radriq's fiefdom, and generous rewards have been posted. If they can recover even a tenth of what the warlord has taken, a lawyer from the city of Enashla will settle Radriq. Now...

 ...we launch into several episodic misadventures which are the meat-and-potatoes of true quest-fic, and it all leads eventually, inevitably, to this place: the land pirates' stronghold, in the ancient, ruined city of Ul-kedd-innu. To the horizon, the dead city lies smashed as a result of war, earthquake and plague more than a century in the past. Now, it is bleached bones and granite slabs. Jevenni has carved out his citadel in what used to be the palace and fortress, on the highest point, overlooking the fields of rubble-strewn desolation. According to everything his men divulge -- when captured and made drunk as lords -- he's so complacent, he doesn't post guards. In fact, it's a point of honour that he refuses to post guards: sentries and troops would only acknowledge that he is vulnerable in the heart of his own domain -- Jevenni would deny this to the death. With this information, Orel, the much-decorated veteran, favourite of the Her Serene Majesty, browbeats Count Radriq into providing a detachment from his household cavalry. But the force will hold back in the forest, waiting for a signal and letting the three specialists go in by stealth ... on the understanding that one man can pass where an army couldn't, and a specialist in creating havoc might bring the whole edifice tumbling down before the enemy knew it was happening. Under cover of darkness, in we go --

...long story short: subterfuge, stealth, swordfights and a liberal dash of strange sorcery, and by morning, the land pirates have scattered like roaches. Jevenni is extremely dead, and dawn finds Orel on the crenelated roof of the old fortress, right above the warlord's lair. Under the free, open sky, he is once again making peace with his ghosts and his father's old gods. The eagle -- for this is his name -- is trying very hard indeed to fly high and free, but will his flight carry him away from trouble, or right to the next battlefield? No one knows. Both Gianna and Lynos are injured, though not badly. They sent up the signal flare; the count's cavalry came in fast to scour the ruins for prisoners, and now Gianna and Lynos are only looking for the warlord's cache. They find it -- but in any case, they have actually fulfilled the contract. They no longer need a lawyer from Enashla. They take a portion of the spoils for themselves, as is only fair, and for himself, Orel takes enough to buy him the time, peace and quiet to begin again...

...and the story ends with a full-circle moment, right back where it began. At dawn, Orel hitches up his horses, stocks the Vardo, and is on the road again, headed away from anything remotely like a battlefield. In his ears, the ghosts' thin voices continue to whisper, but he has made his peace with some of them, and believes the others can be persuaded in time. The new sun is warm on his face, the open sky and moors lie ahead in the west, with snow-crowned mountains ringing a horizon so vast, it looks like the whole world. Now, perhaps the eagle can fly free after all. 

So ends this basic plot. In the writing, the details will change; names will change; a map will be sorted out, and the episodic parts will be tied down into a tight-knit structure. But this is more than enough to get my muse quite excited, and I think I'll enjoy writing this one. The art is not new. These are all 2019-2021 renders, featuring G8 Dae as Orel, G8 Rex as Lynos ... and I can't remember the G8 Female character who appears as Gianna, but she's in the DAZ library somewhere. That's the good old Millennium Horse, plus the DAZ Cat, many, many foliage and furniture props, and the old Gypsy Wagon from Renderosity. Everything here was rendered in Iray; a couple were painted comprehensively in Photoshop afterward. I was messing about with images and ended up, by chance, with these open in Irfanvew, in sequence ... the story just popped out at me!